Judges Iced Wylie In Short Program

February 17, 1992|By JIM SARNI, On Olympic TV

More logs on the Olympic television fire:

-- Figure skating fuels the Winter Games in two ways. If people aren`t talking about the beauty of the skaters, they`re talking about the folly of the judges. The Sunday morning debate -- was Paul Wylie robbed of the gold medal? My poll said yes.

-- Wylie lost the gold medal when he was underjudged in the short program, something that CBS did not explain well. Wylie wasn`t going to pass Viktor Petrenko from third place without help from Petr Barna, and he didn`t get it. The same thing happened to Elizabeth Manley in Calgary -- she would have won the gold with a second-place start in the short program.

-- There are no debates in skiing. Andy Mill made the point clearly: ``Your time is on the board. There is no judge to tell you how well you skied.``

-- ``The Battle of the Brians`` worked for ABC in Calgary, but CBS foolishly tried to build up a Viktor Petrenko-Kurt Browing duel for the men`s gold medal (``two men, two friends, only one gold medal``). A stupid storyline, made worse by the fact that CBS already knew the results by air time Saturday night.

-- Hold that audience. CBS began setting up the ladies` competition with a Kristi Yamaguchi feature Sunday, three days before she skates.

VIEWERS MISS BUTTON

-- Dick Button is watching the Olympics in Florida, and getting a lot of calls from viewers who miss his no-punches-pulled commentary. Button believes that skaters should not become commentators until eight years after they`ve competed, because they`re still too close to the competitors. Scott Hamilton got too emotional about Wylie.

-- Dana Carvey did a funny Hamilton on Saturday Night Live`s opening spoof of figure skating. Jason Priestley played a skater named Brian Demming, who kept falling all over the ice, ending up with marks of 0.1 (0.0 from the Soviet judge).

-- Figure skating is such a hook for CBS that the network can`t open a nightly telecast without it. Even if it shows just one ice dance number -- as CBS did Sunday night -- before switching to another sport.

-- Can you hum the CBS Olympic theme yet? Probably not. It`s impossible to match ABC`s magnificent theme -- if you close your eyes, you can still hear it ringing in your memory. Tamara Kline, a Los Angeles-based composer, created CBS` music, chosen over 200 other entries. Her piece is produced with four orchestrations, depending on the time of day: a bright, easy feel for mornings, more hip for late-night, trumpets and percussion for weekends and a violin-driven classical orchestra sound for nighttime.

-- I don`t know about you, but the Winter Olympics don`t get going until curling begins. Get ready, it starts today.

-- There are more painted faces among the fans at the Winter Olympics than anywhere.

-- CBS is filling each hour of prime-time with 11 1/2 minutes of commercials, with an additional 1 1/2 minutes of promotions. The total is one minute less than NBC`s 14 minutes of advertising during the Seoul Olympics which bothered viewers so much. CBS viewers are not complaining about the commercial load.

-- Best camera position: back view of the downhill skier racing by and nearly vanishing into thin air.

-- Can anybody read the button on Dave Peterson`s sweater?

OVERNIGHT RATINGS SLIP

CBS`s overnight ratings for the eighth night of the Winter Olympics were down 18 percent from the Calgary Games four years ago. The network said Sunday that it believed that its 20.0 rating from 7-11 p.m. EST were not as good as ABC`s 24.5 in 1988 because of the taped coverage on CBS.

``It should be pointed out that ABC`s viewing levels were enhanced by the live gold medal figure skating competition won by Brian Boitano,`` the network said in a statement.

For prime time (8-11 p.m. EST), CBS got a 21.0 overnight rating in 25 major markets and a 34 share. ABC got a 9.3 rating and a 15 share, while NBC got a 9.1 rating and a 15 share.